top of Annie. Full of twigs and stones and worms. In his pocket he had a crumpled piece of paper, a few words he had intended to read as they stood near the casket after the sermon. The fact that he merely stood there, gasping, without managing to utter a single word, would haunt him for the rest of his life.
"I wonder if S酶lvi might have a little problem," he said, putting a plump finger to his forehead, then changing his mind and moving it to his temple. "Not something that would show up in a scan or anything, she's learned what she needs to learn here in the world, she's just a little slow. A little one-sided, perhaps. You mustn't talk to Ada about this," he said.
"Would she deny that S酶lvi has a problem?" Sejer asked.
"She says that if they can't find anything, then it must not be there. People are just different, she says."
Sejer had called him to his office. Holland still seemed lost in a vast darkness.
"I have to ask you about a few things," Sejer said. "If Annie had met Axel Bj酶rk on the road, would she have got into his car?"
The question made Holland gape in surprise. "That's the most monstrous thing I've ever heard," he said.
"A monstrous crime has been committed here. Just answer my question. I don't know these people as well as you do, and I actually regard that as an advantage."
"S酶lvi's father," he said. "Yes, I suppose so. They went to his place two or three times, so she knew him. She would probably have got into his car if he asked her to. Why wouldn't she?"
"What kind of relationship do you have with him?"
"We don't have a relationship."
"But you've talked to him?"
"Barely. Ada has always stopped him at the door. Claimed that he was trying to force his way in."
"What do you think about that?"
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as if his own weakness were obvious. "I thought it was pretty stupid. He didn't want to ruin things for us, he just wanted to see S酶lvi once in a while. Now he's lost everything. Even his job."
"What about S酶lvi? Did she want to see him?"
"I'm afraid Ada wrecked any desire she might have had. She can be very harsh. I think Bj酶rk has given up. But he was at the funeral, and at least then he had a chance to see her. You see, it's not easy to go against Ada," he said. "Not that I'm afraid of her, or anything," he gave a brief, ironic laugh. "But she gets so upset. It's not easy to explain. She gets very upset, and I can't deal with it."
He fell silent again, and Sejer sat, waiting, as he tried to imagine the interaction between these people. How thousands of threads became tangled up in each other over the years, forming a tough, finely woven net in which a person felt trapped. It fascinated him. And an individual's intense resistance to pulling out a knife and cutting himself loose, even though he was sick with longing for freedom. Holland would probably like to get out of Ada's net, but thousands of little ties held him back. He had made a choice; he would sit in those sticky threads for the rest of his life, and the decision had pushed him down a notch so that his whole, heavy body slumped and sagged.
"So you haven't got anything?" Holland asked after a while.
"Unfortunately, no," Sejer said. "All we have is a great many people who speak warmly and lovingly of Annie. There are very few forensic clues, and they haven't given us any leads, and there seems to be no apparent motive. Annie was not sexually assaulted or abused in any way. No one observed anything that might be of use to us in the vicinity of Kollen on that particular day, and everyone who travelled that stretch of road by car has been identified and checked out. There is one exception, but that car has been described in such vague terms that it hasn't led anywhere. The motorcyclist seen at Horgen's Shop seems to have vanished into thin air. Perhaps he was a tourist who was just passing through. No one saw his number plates. We've sent divers down to search for her bag, so far without success, so we have to assume that it's still in the killer's possession. We have no basis for an arrest, and so we can't search anyone.